Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Excuse me, what?

No? Have you been living in a cave? Because it seems like more people are getting to be more rude...or, as I have been known to put it, rude, crude, and socially unacceptable...every day.

This is especially true on the Internet. I know; big surprise.

I'd like to say that it's the anonymity that the Internet allows, but it isn't that. A lot of the rudeness that I've been running into is on Facebook (I've written about my FB complaints here before, especially the "If you don't post this you're [fill in the blank...evil, heartless, and so forth]) are put up with the poster's full, real name. But it isn't just that.

There's also the memes, which seem to pop up on my feed with ever-more regularity, that say, generally, "If you don't like my opinions, screw you."

Well, I have opinions too (you know that if you've read here very often), and I don't often care much if people don't agree with me. I'm used to that; many people don't agree with me most of the time, me being one of those horrible flaming liberals like I am.

But, you know what? I also don't feel the need to preface or follow any of my opinions with an explicit declaration that anyone who doesn't agree with me needs to go screw themselves. Because they are allowed to their opinion, too.

The thing that bothers me about these declarations is that the implicit message, as I read them, is: "My opinion matters, but yours doesn't because mine is the only really important opinion." I take exception to that, because opinions are like assholes...pretty much everyone has one, and unless you have special expertise in whatever your opinion pertains to, yours isn't any more valuable than mine is. And mine isn't any more valuable than yours.

I don't know. Maybe it's just because I'm in a foul mood generally today, but I've had it up to here with this sort of thing.

So...it's your turn. Who's being rude in your life? Have you had it up to here with the whole thing? Do you speak up, or do you back off so that you aren't perceived as being rude, as well?

3 comments:

I completely understand the FB crap that inundates my feed. It's ridiculous! And yes, I too think people about becoming more rude. During the presidential race, people were posting all sorts of awful things about this side or that and when someone would refute it underneath the status, an argument would ensue.

My mom's been kind of rude to me lately. We live long-distance and she gets a little snappy from time to time about me being so far away. (Note: it's been 6 years..I don't know if she's giving up the fight)

I know what you both mean. During the run-up to the election, sometimes it seemed like all I did was hide posts on FB so that I wouldn't start arguing. It hasn't gotten any better since all the gun control stuff started up.